Kings Day 2025

This year the Two Brass Monkeys invite me to travel over to Eindhoven and Venlo with them, so I head down to Ali’s place on Friday morning. My sat-nag takes me around a bit of a roundabout route, but it does keep me out of any rush-hour traffic, which is great. I get to Ali’s at pretty much the appointed time (albeit we’ve decided at the last minute to bring our departure forward an hour or so, and that turned out to be a good decision!) and it doesn’t take long to load up the trick and head down toward Folkestone.

Getting onto Le Shuttle is super-efficient, with trained seagulls checking our tickets. The trip under the channel is an opportunity to stretch our legs and have some snacks on the tailgate. Heading out into France, Steve and I keep reminding Ali to drive on the wrong side of the road and asking if we’re nearly there yet. We stop for a mid-afternoon lunch at a roadside Belgian Burger King and we chew up the miles pretty ruthlessly until we hit the outskirts of Antwerp where we find traffic that will end up delaying us for around an hour or more. My job of supplying snacks to the driver and up-front passenger becomes crucial at this stage.

After we clear Antwerp, the roads open up again, but by now we’re later than we’d hoped to be, and we’re rearranging the evening plans with Louis…we manage to get to Louis’ place in time to say hello and grab a quick drink before heading out to our Friday evening escape room in Oisterwiijk.

We all get dressed up like merry woodsmen and somehow resist the urge to launch into a rousing rendition of “I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK!”. It’s an interesting room where the first section made us toil for quite a while until we (OK, Louis!) spotted some tiny details… that helped us make significant progress before heading into the second area which felt more tractable (i.e. suited our “Let’s just try this”-style) – the mechanics for opening the third area surprised us all and we found we had a heck of a lot to do in the final area – so that ended up being quite a rush... with quite a few nudges we just managed to get though everything in time. We reckoned it was a pretty good room -with some really surprising mechanics along the way.

Back at Louis’ place plenty of puzzling ensued – I know – shocker! Somewhere around midnight we call it a day and head off to check into the hotel.

Next morning I meet the monkeys for breakfast before Louis and Mieke collect us to take us bargain-hunting at the King’s Day flea markets, resplendent in our obligatory orange polo shirts. We get a lot of steps in wandering around viewing the various treasures for sale. We fail to find any Stickmen, Lensch or Toulouzas treasures. Ali does manage to find a 3x3 Mastermorphix(?) and against our better judgment he buys it for a euro. (In fairness it provides way more than a euro’s entertainment over the rest of the weekend!) Steve manages to find an absolute treasure of a vintage Swine Dissection (SD) puzzle and duly sends in the A-Team to negotiate the purchase – Louis and Mieke secure the pièce de resistance and the team of travelling puzzlers celebrated!

We grab a bite to eat at a café before heading off to the next flea market, where sadly zero Tom Lensches or Swine Dissections are discovered... so we head back to Louis’ for some more puzzling.

I’d taken over a few of my latest Pelikan acquisitions which were duly passed around – Girish’s Heavy Lifter gets several nods of approval, Frederic’s Sym Duo puts smiles on everyone’s faces and I enjoy (finally) solving a couple of Mine’s latest assemblies.

I’d printed off a few copies of Steve’s Smells of Roses (where the heck do these names come from!?) so Louis made short work of assembling that, and in fact running through all of the Pelikans I’d taken over. Knowing I’ve been getting nowhere on my RaDio, he suggests I have a bash on his, and after some subtle questioning, he coaxes me into doing the right thing and the puzzle comes alive for me in a totally unexpected manner – it is magical.

Late afternoon we head off to our second escape room at Hotel Veloria (IYK,YK) – we grab a drink in the hotel bar before being ushered into the Reception area and then head into the room… which I’m not going to say much about, because the element of continual surprise is just incredible. The theming throughout is literally perfect and the mechanics are jaw-dropping! It’s easy to see why this one has consistently scored well in the TERPECA league tables ever since it opened in 2017(!). It’s worth going (well) out of your way to visit this one!

We head back to Louis’ place via Dominos to collect some pizzas. Louis refused to accept any contributions toward either the room or the pizzas, so we left a random sum of cash in the glovebox for someone to find.

We spent an hour or two trying to get into Pavel's "What is the name of this puzzle?" and failed miserably... Yet more puzzling, with some actual solving, ensues until we decide to call it a day at around midnight.

Breakfast with Steve and Ali is always fun and Louis collects us to take us through to Wil’s place where we find our genial host putting the final touches on his arrangements. We’re welcomed like long-lost friends and we take the opportunity to foist gifts on our host before the rest of the gaggle arrives.

The usual spread of fruit tarts is on display in the kitchen and Wil is quick to offer everyone something to drink… the crowds begin arriving and I put a pile of sundry 3D printed bits and pieces out in the hope that they’ll find new homes. (They do.) There are a few more copies of Smells of Roses (mental note: ask Steve about that damn name, it’s starting to bug me), a couple of spare Barcode Burrs and several copies of Bram’s Hinged Cube.

Chris throws himself at Smells of Roses and looks suitably proud when he finally slides the stubborn tetrahedron together. Rani did a pretty good job on assembling some not-so-orderly tangles and several puzzlers need to have their bubbles burst by pointing out that the proper solution for Bram’s Hinged Cube does not allow the two sticky-outy-bits to meet. I reckon that puzzle is still hands-down the best value for money puzzle out this year.

Wil's spread for lunch is phenomenal yet again, there is plenty of food to refuel hungry puzzlers and there seems to be a constant supply of cakes, tarts and snacks on the go throughout the day!

Oskar takes up his traditional spot with a table-full of his latest creations. There’s a constant stream of puzzlers chatting and fiddling and buying bits and pieces throughout the morning. It’s a gloriously sunny day and while we’re all enjoying the warmth, sadly some of Oskar’s 3D prints start wilting in the afternoon heat, so they’re gathered up and put in the shade to be repaired. Oskar moves into the shade and there’s a surreal conversation when Steve asks Oskar what his day job is at the moment – there are some highly intelligent people in this community of puzzlers. I have no idea how I managed to blag my way in!

Jules had brought along a bunch of really interesting looking puzzle locks and they had a constant stream of admirers, and a slightly less constant stream of solvers. I manage to solve a few of them, but several of them bested me! The centrepiece was a fascinating German(?) padlock with the front removed so that you could see all of the complications added to make opening it seriously non-trivial.

Wil dished out a number of his latest disentanglement finds from China – what appears to be a riff on Foshee’s Holey Bolt – always a fun challenge!

It was great to catch up with Rob & Rob & Daan & Michel & Rik & Jan Willem & a whole bunch of other Puzzling friends from around Europe!

The crowds had thinned out and we headed into town for another great meal on the river – puzzles all over the table, and a rather vocal toy train for some reason. I spent ages trying (and failing) to work out Wil’s mind-reading trick, interrupted only by Steve’s successful solving of the method… must try harder – I now have two sets of those cards and I’m still no closer to working out the method! The meal was great and we headed back to Wil’s where Esther continued the entertainment with a traditional campfire game that had most of us confused for quite a while. Everyone eventually worked it out and the crowds thinned out further as folks with further to travel headed home… we puzzled and chatted and got plied with coffee and chocolates until we finally gave up just before midnight, knowing we had an hour’s drive back to Eindhoven.

Louis got us all back safe and sound and we said our thank-yous and goodbyes. Breakfast was a fairly leisurely affair with Ali and Steve so that we missed the traffic out of Eindhoven – that bit was successful, although we still contrived to find some traffic around Antwerp in late morning – albeit significantly less this time!

We topped up on snacks at the border, getting into Folkestone literally just after we drove onboard the train in Calais, in spite of the now-traditional tailgate snacking on the way back. The drive back up the motorway to Steve’s place was thoroughly uneventful (all the best journeys are!) and soon I was back in my own car heading back to Brum, where the sat-nag once again did a good job of keeping me away from the traffic so I made good time getting home…

An absolutely brilliant weekend away with my mates – Thanks a stack to Ali for doing all the driving, Louis for looking after us the whole weekend and treating us to escape rooms and flea markets, and Wil for hosting another awesome King’s Day party, and dinner! Thank you all for giving me a brilliant weekend’s entertainment.